Hakuba Snow Report – 29th Feb 2012

Wednesday 29th February 2012, 9:26AM
Weather conditions: Cloud, light snow
New snowfall: 0 cm
Snow depth: 120cm (Village); 290cm (Top of Goryu)
A fantastic morning out yesterday with clear blue skies. As forecast, it got slightly more overcast looking later on in the day but it stayed clear and sunny and anyone out there won’t have been disappointed. After a cloudy night this morning light snow is falling in Hakuba. None of the resorts are reporting any new snowfall officially though Goryu have said a few cm have fallen this morning up top. Not much of a wind at all and it looks like visibility will generally be fine out there.

It is about -2 degrees in the village at the moment, but as the day progresses we will see milder temperatures and a high of around +5 is forecast this afternoon. So this snowfall we have now probably will not last long and will likely clear up this afternoon, and tomorrow looks set to be a clear and sunny day again with a high of perhaps around +7 degrees.

Looking at the forecast for the coming week, there’s still not much snow likely to report – it’s more a case of clearer, drier conditions and mild temperatures for the most part.

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Yesterday it was found the bond between the thaw crust and the subsequent snow strengthening. The crust is still a bit damp and not totally frozen, even after the cold last night. The layers above are settling, densifying, and bonding. It still sluffs, but the only sensitive areas we observed were windloaded spots, and those where the surface was wetting out. Sunny aspects had midday thaw and afternoon sun crust; shady ones still held good snow.